Collective memory as an alibi

Abstract

The subject of the article is the concept of collective memory, considered through the prism of ‘lived history’ – appearing in two forms: ‘lived in the actual and objective sense’ and ‘experienced in the content sense’ – and ‘objectified history’. By taking under consideration Polish controversies around Jan Tomasz Gross’ books: Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne (Polish ed. 2000) and Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz (Polish ed. 2008), the author questions the idea of uniform collective memory and its normative claims. Collective memory and the dominant historical narrative is often subject to political manipulation as a means to affirm social unity by occluding of excluding others’ memories. The memory of the past is in fact usually divided among different social and ethnic groups that never formed a coherent community. There is little possibility to conciliate these opposite memories; the only possible way is to confront and negotiate these discrepant views, to work in the direction of democratization of memory.